Page 30 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope
She’s the butterfly,I decide.I am the moth.
The real question is, will we catch each other or will we continue to chase one another in a dreary cycle? I suppose time will lend us the answer eventually, but I’m in no hurry. I quite enjoy this journey I’ve found myself on with her.
As the thought leaves me, I glance down at her and find her soft brown and green-speckled eyes studying my face. She quickly looks away as if I’ve caught her red-handed and I hide my amusement by taking a long sip from my coffee.
It’s all I can think of doing to keep from kissing her. The careful stolen glances that she takes to observe me light my skin on fire and burn into my core. I want to hold her hand and whisper sweet things to her, press my lips against the crook of her lithe neck and tenderly bite her just enough to get her writhing.
Wait—stop. Don’t think of thatnow.
I clear my throat. “Well, shall we go to the lookout?” I ask with a shaky voice and hurriedly stand. She’s a beat behind me, at my side in the next.
We walk down the main street, passing shops and parlors before the neighborhood district. Then a few blocks until we reach the bottom of the cliffside. The cement stairs have been seared into my memory. I’ve been here many times, in life and after. I remember every shrub and lamp post, every crack and new ones that have formed over the years.
My eyes always flick to the temporary apartment that Wynn and I stayed in before everything ended. The owner sold the building a few years back and now it’s just a storage unit.
I look up the stairway and to the railing of the lookout above. Nostalgia overwhelms me tonight. I’m revisited by thoughts of Liam and Wynn, tattoos and pink hair.
“You okay?” Ophelia’s hand smooths down the side of my arm and brings me back to the present. “It happened up there, didn’t it?” she asks softly.
I nod sadly and murmur, “Yes, and I’ve been here many times since. I just feel so—” I pause because I can’t put a word to it.
She gives me a weak smile. “Sad?”
“Yeah… I guess so.” It’s close enough. But other emotions mingle with the sadness.
“It’s okay to be sad, Lanston.” She squeezes my arm reassuringly and then walks ahead of me, ascending the steps as she says, “I’m sad too, more than I care to admit.”
I follow behind her and try to focus on looking around the underbrush for any sign of a satchel. Though, now that I’m here I think it’s stupid that I thought to look here. Where would someone hide a satchel out here without it being found or destroyed by the environment?
“Yeah? Why are you sad?” I ask absently, letting my eyes wander. Somehow, they end up on her.
She stops once we reach the parking lot at the top and turns, giving me an inquiring look. “I’m sad because I wish you hadn’t died here, Lanston.” She stares off toward the tainted field. “But you did.”
A cold breeze ruffles my hair and sends a chill down my spine.
“I did.”
“And now we have to make the most of it.” Ophelia faces me stoically, the wind moving her hair over her shoulder. “I’m happy to have met your ghost. You are the first person to make me feel…” her brows pull together as she thinks.
“Less alone?” I take a step toward her. The earth could tilt on its axis and still I would not move from this spot—from where she stands, mere inches away.
Her features soften.
“Like I was never alone,” she confesses and closes the space between us. The last threads of the sunset caress our cheeks.
Her lips part and she looks up at me with hooded eyes.
I want to kiss her. Desperately. But I don’t want to ruin what little trust we’ve built between us already. So I give her a mild grin and look around the parking lot. “Let’s check around the rock retaining wall and around the lot,” I breathe out, sounding disappointed with myself.
She frowns, and I know it then that I made her feel unwanted.Shit.I’ve been out of the romance game for so long now. I open my mouth to say something,anything, that might fix the awkward silence that ensues, but she turns sharply.
“Sounds good. I’ll look over here,” she says coldly.
Goddamnit.
14
Ophelia
